Stop censoring Christian right

War has brought issue to a head

November 26, 2001|By Dennis Byrne. Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-area writer and public affairs consultant.

The war, it is said, has brought us closer together, to respect all religions and all their faithful. Except, of course, for Christian conservatives, who deserve scorn and loathing.

That thought came thundering home when HBO aired a promotion for a comedy special: "George Carlin: Complaints and Grievances." It sure sounded special. If you are a Christian conservative, he said, or a conservative Christian--whatever--don't watch.

I didn't, because I suspect that Carlin offended more than Christian conservatives. The guy's a jerk, and not what I consider to be satisfying viewing during these religious holidays. Religious sensitivities, however, didn't stop HBO from springing this promotion on viewers. Imagine, in these times, if Carlin said, if you are a Muslim, don't watch. Or if you are a Jew, don't watch. If you are a "progressive" Christian, don't watch. You still can get away with a lot by attacking the "Christian right," and you can do it shamelessly and without a hint of public disquiet that anything is slightly amiss. Now we are in Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of prayer and fasting. To be "inclusive," the media, other faiths and everyone from President Bush on down are making an effort to understand and welcome Muslim believers. This is good, rapid progress, considering my computer spell-checker doesn't even contain the word Ramadan. Hanukkah also is a religious holiday growing in awareness, if not respect, of gentiles. Yet it is no exaggeration to say that an attack on one religion is an attack on all religions.

Included among those attacks is the misplaced conviction that religion must be cleansed from the public place--the result of a wide and growing misunderstanding of the "separation of church and state" interpretation of the 1st Amendment. Actually, those words do not appear in the 1st Amendment, which was crafted for two purposes: to protect the state from controlling religion and religion from controlling the state.

So, while the war against terrorism has, in a sense, unified us, it also has revealed fractures based on this misunderstanding. A prime example was the recent decision by a Madison, Wis., school board to forbid the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools because its phrase "one nation, under God" supposedly causes offense. No doubt, it does for a few, but that's too bad--it's constitutionally protected speech, just as is Carlin's.

In Rocklin, Cal., a school board that dared allow the display of a post-Sept. 11 message, "God Bless America," now faces a legal challenge from--you got it--the American Civil Liberties Union, because it is "hurtful" and "divisive."

While the war brought some of these issues to a head. Here are some examples, as compiled by the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based international public interest law firm specializing in constitutional law and religious liberty cases. Churches in Babylon, N.Y., and Marshall, Texas, were refused town hall and school facilities respectively for after-hours religious meetings. Tucson, Ariz., waived fees for trash collection and other services for park gatherings, events such as Earth Day, Hispanic Cultural Arts and a Gay Pride picnic, but refused to waive these fees for a National Day of Prayer event. San Diego barred a church from posting in schools information on seminars dealing with parenting and school violence, when other groups were allowed to advertise. A Little Rock, Ark., school district forbade a coalition of churches from using school facilities after-hours for a Christian youth retreat. A California court ruled that the words "Jesus Christ" could not be mentioned in any invocation offered by clergy before city council meetings.

Such actions violate the spirit and substance of 1st Amendment free speech protections. The U.S. Supreme Court has twice ruled in a decade that school districts cannot discriminate against religious organizations because of their religious message. If a school opens its facilities to other community groups, it cannot deny access to a religious group, according to the ACLU.

We've already entered a holy season, which opened last week with a national holiday not just to toss thanks out into the ether, but to give thanks to God. That so many Americans still see these days primarily as times of religious observance, rather than secular days off still says much about what America is. That we can and do celebrate this holy season together, as one nation, under God, should be cause for rejoicing, not censorship.